Rob Flitter – Chief Engineer/Office Leader, Black & Veatch

I joined the Chester office of Binnie Black & Veatch (now Black & Veatch) in August 1999, with nine years of varied experience in the construction industry. I have, however, always maintained a preference for water-based work.

As part of my degree course at the University of Bradford, I completed a very enjoyable and valuable placement year with Yorkshire Water Engineering Service. Here I assisted in the design and tender document preparation for several water supply schemes. I also gained three months of site experience on the construction of a reinforced concrete reservoir.

I managed to secure a post with Morrison Construction, where I worked on varied projects for five years. Initially, I was responsible for keeping site records and setting out for projects including a £420,000 reinforced concrete coal reclamation hopper, a £801,000 drainage scheme and a £7.5 million, 5.2km long by-pass. Later in my career, I had increasing responsibilities, including quality assurance, material requisition and co-ordination of safety on site on a variety of schemes, including a £500,000 industrial unit and road projects valued up to £1 million.

In order to pursue chartered status, I successfully sought a design secondment at Acer Consultants, where I gained valuable design experience in raw water supply schemes. Following this secondment, I was offered a permanent position with Acer, now Hyder Consulting and was appointed as lead design engineer. I was given project management responsibility of the reinforced concrete and pipework design of a £10 million wastewater treatment works and the design of sewer diversions for £100 million road scheme.

I joined BB&V as Project Engineer/Project Manger, with duties including project management of Section 105 Flood Risk Studies, as well as the design of an Environment Agency gauging station in Cheshire and a canal diversion for British Waterways in the Pennines.

My career progressed, providing tender assistance to contractors on design and construct water and wastewater projects. More recently, alongside a developing project management role, I have taken on the leadership of the Chester office, with duties including resourcing, interface with other offices, cascading of management information and dealing with personnel issues, along with the day to day running of the office in an efficient, safe and environmentally sound manner.

Having achieved ICE chartered status in 2004, I am aiming towards becoming a full member of CIWEM in the near future.

Return to Case Studies